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Toronto charity recognized for innovative approach to teaching math

A Toronto charity that preaches an alternative method for teaching math to kids has been honoured with an international award for innovative educators.

Jump Math was named the winner of this year’s World Innovation Summit for Education award, an annual $20,000 (U.S.) prize given to projects from around the world that address educational challenges.

John Mighton, founder of Jump Math, has been honoured for his charity's work in designing step-by-step math lessons. (Colin McConnell / Toronto Star File Photo)

“We’re thrilled,” said Jump founder John Mighton of the award. “Jump is getting a lot of recognition internationally and nationally nowadays, so we’re hoping it can help us reach more kids.”

Jump offers lesson plans and study guides for student in Grades 1 to 8. Teachers and principals in Canada, the U.S., and some European countries use Jump material in their classrooms, for a fee.

“It’s breaking the lesson into micro-challenges and giving immediate feedback or having a discussion and knowing where kids are at,” said Mighton.

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The incremental process is meant to make it easier for kids to understand one step before the teacher moves onto the next one.

The aim is for students to learn at the same pace, instead of some kids grasping the concept quickly and others getting discouraged, Mighton said.

“Then you can start getting the group effect where everyone’s excited and then the kids who traditionally struggle start engaging and learning, to a degree that people wouldn’t believe,” he added.

Jump’s award announcement comes just days after Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office revealed that as many as 50 per cent of Grade 6 students failed to meet provincial math standards last year.

These are the worst results since 2001.

Sixty-three per cent of Grade 3 students met provincial standards, which is the worst showing since 2003.

Slipping math scores are not a new concern for the province; in 2014, the Ministry of Education announced $4 million to subsidize “additional qualification” courses for teachers to bone up on their math knowledge.

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Several teachers’ colleges around Ontario have instituted mandatory math courses or math testing for elementary teachers in training

And, earlier this year, the Ontario government rolled out an overhauled math strategy at a cost of $60 million. Under the new plan, each school must have a designated “lead” math teacher, who is “deeply knowledgeable about teaching math,” and students in Grades 1 through 8 must get at least one hour of math learning per day.

Mighton told the Star he believes school boards should experiment with many different teaching methods to see which works best.

“This is much deeper than Jump,” Mighton said.

“If you have a particular curriculum, you have to try different approaches to teaching that curriculum; you have to run several approaches to teaching and look at the data.”

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